It's been a long time since I stared inside a computer, so be gentle with me. I'm working on an arcade game. Deal or No Deal. Which inside is a old Dell running the game. It's crashing and the troubleshooting manual states to check for 512MB RAM in BIOS. I checked, and lo and behold it's reporting 256. I've got the case off, poking around, and I notice the RAM inside is 2 DDR2 256MB 533MHz SDRAM. I've noticed that with only one of these in I get only 128MB reported in the BIOS. So, my real question is this. As I have not looked at RAM in a long time, I cannot remember if this RAM design required two of the same sticks to report the correct size (i.e. 128 + 128 = 256MB as stated) Sorry, guys. I'm just trying to figure out what's really inside this thing.
No, DDR2 does not require paired modules. Here's my hypothesis if half the ram on each module is buggered then your total would be 256MB while with only one in you'd get 128. Depending on the electrical arrangement of the modules (Do DDR2 modules that small have different banks?) and the mechanical arrangement (Dust settling on one side, one side right next to the psu getting cooked etc) this is a possibility. A DDR2 dimm of that size should be cheap as chips on ebay by now though (Just checked, you're looking at under a tenner inc postage, some for under a fiver) so in you position I'd get a pair of new modules and stick 'em in, see if it helps. Moriquendi
Thanks a ton! You got the most confusing part of the issue resolved for me. Now I just need to poke around on this thing some more.
